Keeping calm the key to success for Peterborough United against Bristol Rovers insists midfielder

Posh’s players came into the match still under pressure to answer the stinging criticism they received from boss Darren Ferguson on Tuesday night when a promising performance gave way to a poor final 20 minutes and an eventual penalty shootout defeat away at Mansfield in the EFL Cup.

Ferguson accused his side of going under when put under pressure and questioned the character of his side.

On Saturday, however, Posh were able to hold onto their lead and showed grit in the second half as Bristol Rovers threatened to mount a comeback from their two-goal deficit following goals from Collins and David Ajiboye.

Collins opened the scoring with a deflected strike from distance, but the goal has been awarded to him and it was his first for Posh since joining from Exeter in the summer.

Collins said: “The most important thing today was the win, but I’m really happy to get my goal for Posh. It came out to me on the edge of the box and I just put my head down and tried to connect the best I could.

“They’re a good side with lots of good players so breaking the deadlock was always going to be the hardest thing, but after we did that we were calm and played the game a lot better than we have recently. That’s a massive positive to take.

“In the second half, we kept to the game plan and got the second really early to settle us.

“We set out to try and be on the front foot because we were at home and when we’ve got nothing to think about or worry about, the boys just do it and it works. We’re a better team for it.

“We’re young, we’ve got energy and it plays to our favour.

“We’re very happy with the clean sheet. We could have got more and probably deserved more, but 2-0 was good.”

Collins will have a new central midfield partner on Tuesday night away at Carlisle as Hector Kyprianou will be suspended after picking up a fifth booking of the season on Saturday.